Werner Herzog

→http://www.wernerherzog.com ←

♦  ♦  Lessons of Darkness ↓ (1992)

Shot in documentary style on 16mm film from the perspective of an alien observer, the film is an exploration of the ravaged oil fields of post-Gulf War Kuwait, decontextualised and characterised in such a way as to emphasise the terrain’s cataclysmic strangeness.

¤  More madness . . . ⇒Kuwaiti oil fields set alight ⇐

♦  Fata Morgana  ⇓   [1971]

A film by Werner Herzog, shot in 1969, which captures mirages in the Sahara desert: ‘Fata Morgana’ comprises three sections: «Creation», «Paradise» & «The Golden Age». 

♦→  Aguirre The Wrath of God  ⇒

Unlike Fitzcarraldo, which balanced its insane spectacle with a narrative laced with human warmth and ultimate redemption, Aguirre is essentially a trip straight into hell, a damned expedition loosely based on the story of Basque conquistador Lope de Aguirre.

Herzog essentially set out to capture a time and place never seen before, one which seems to burst from western civilization’s collective unconscious and mirrors the mad follies committed by inept leaders over the centuries.

◊  The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser  ↓

[Florian Fricke plays ‘Agnus Dei’ _ 1974]

Herzog’s film is based upon the true and mysterious story of Kaspar Hauser, a young man who suddenly appeared in Nuremberg in 1828, barely able to speak or walk, and bearing a strange note; he later explained that he had been held captive in a dungeon of some sort for his entire life that he could remember, and only recently was he released, for reasons unknown. His benefactor attempts to integrate him into society, with intriguing results.

♦  Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht  ↓  [trailer_1979]

◊→  FITZCARRALDO  ⇓  (bellini: i puritani)  1982

Brian Sweeney «Fitzcarraldo» Fitzgerald (Klaus Kinski) is a European living in Iquitos, a small city in Peru in the early part of the 20th century. He has an indomitable spirit, but in essence is little more than a dreamer with one major failure already behind him… A lover of opera and a great fan of Enrico Caruso, he now dreams of building an opera house in Iquitos. This will require considerable amounts of money, and the most profitable industry in Peru at the time is rubber…

◊ «Burden of dreams» ↓  by → Les Blank ← (1935-2013)

Summary of 1982 documentary film: «The Ordeal of Making Fitzcarraldo»

♦ ‘Ballad of the Little Soldier‘ ⇐[clip_1984]

A documentary about children soldiers in Nicaragua. The film focuses on a group of Miskito Indians who used children soldiers in their resistance against the Sandinistas. Herzog made and co-directed the film at the request of his friend Denis Reichle, who himself served as a child-soldier in the Volkssturm at age fourteen in the aftermath of World War II.

◊  Where the Green Ants Dream  ⇓  [1985]

Set in the Australian desert, the film is about a land feud between a mining company (which he called Ayers to avoid any legal threats from Nabalco) and the native Aborigines. The Aborigines claim that an area the mining company wishes to work on is the place where green ants dream, and that disturbing them will destroy humanity.

◊   Cobra Verde ↓  [1987]

In the Nineteenth Century, in Bahia, the bandit Francisco Manoel da Silva aka Cobra Verde is feared and respected by the locals. He is hired by the lord Octavio Coutinho to work as henchman in one of his plantations of sugar cane, supervising the slaves and the production of sugar. When the three daughters of Octavio are pregnant of Cobra Verde, he is sent to Almeria, in the West of Africa, to negotiate slaves with the crazy African King Abomey, in times when this trade was prohibited by Great Britain. The loneliness associated to the fact of being the only white man in Almeria drives Cobra Verde to insanity.

♦  Wodaabe – Herdsmen of the Sun  ↓  1989

The Wodaabe tribe, a nomadic African community (self-described as «the most beautiful people on earth») annually practice a festival called Gerewol, in which females choose their mates from a lineup of super-elaborately adorned men with wild makeup, feathers and kaleidoscopic robes draping their seven-foot frames. Starting with the first scene, Herzog accentuates the ethereal nature of this rite further by layering early 20th-century recordings of opera on the soundtrack: «Ohne Trost und ohne Hoffen» (from Julius Cäsar) by Emmi Leisner…

◊  Scream of Stone / Schrei aus Stein ↓  [1991]  …  Tannhäuser overture

◊ A scene from ↓ ‘The Transformation of the World Into Music’ [1994]

Fireman interviewed in doc about the Bayreuth Festival, focusing on Richard Wagner.

A scene from The Transformation of the World Into Music from Adam Cook on Vimeo.

♦  “PILGRIMAGE” ↓  by Werner Herzog  (2001)

The score for the film was composed by John Tavener and performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra with vocal accompaniment by Parvin Cox and the Westminster Cathedral Choir.  Executive Producer Christian Seidel & Rodney Wilson.

♦→  Ten Minutes Older The Trumpet: Thousand Years  ← (2002)

The film opens with stock footage of the Amondauas‘ first contact with modern Brazilians in 1981. Herzog states that they had previously only a «stone age existence», with no knowledge of metalworking. Within several years, the majority of the tribe had been wiped out, most killed by chicken pox and the common cold. Herzog visits the tribe twenty years after their first contact. He discusses the elders’ opinions on their new life, as well as the children’s. The elders long for their previous lives as jungle warriors, while the children are embarrassed by their parents and want to live as modern Brazilians.

♦  WHEEL OF TIME   [2003]

The legendary German filmmaker Werner Herzog traveled to India in 2002 to make a documentary on Kalachakra, the elaborate ordaining ritual for Tibetan Buddhist monks. Every two or three years, nearly a half million pilgrims travel to witness it at Bodh Gaya, India, where the Buddha sat under a tree and found enlightenment. A sand mandala signifying the wheel of time is meticulously created by monks and is meant to stir the seeds of enlightenment in Buddhists of all stripes. This intricate creation stands for the world of phenomena, the realms of consciousness, and the pure lands of the deities. Pilgrims from Nepal, Bhutan, Mongolia, Thailand, and Sri Lanka arrive in trucks or on foot. They endure heat, hunger, and thirst to get there. Those who are more well-to-do set up tents while the majority sleep on the ground…

The closing shot is of Mount Kalish in Tibet, which has been called a «precious jewel of snow.» According to tradition, one three-day trip around the sacred mountain can wipe away the sins of a lifetime. Herzog catches the shimmering dots on the lake in front of the jewel shaped mountain in what becomes a breathtaking visual delight.

♦  Grizzly Man  ↓  (Docudrama – 2005)

Timothy Treadwell periodically journeyed to Alaska to study and live with the bears. He was killed, along with his girlfriend, Amie Huguenard, by a rogue bear in October 2003.

◊→  Rescue Dawn  ↓  [2006] – music by Klaus Badelt ←

Inspired by his own 1997 documentary ‘Little Dieter Needs to Fly‘, this film accounts the escape efforts of a German-American pilot who was taken as a prisoner-of-war after being shot down over Laos during the Vietnam War. When U.S. fighter pilot Dieter Dengler (Christian Bale) escaped death after being shot down over one of the most intense front lines in the Vietnam War, he was taken captive by the enemy and forced to endure a harrowing stint in a Vietnamese prison camp; Dengler and his fellow captives stage a death-defying escape . . .

♦  Encounters at the End of the World  ↓  [clip_2007]

WH profiles the Antarctic community of McMurdo Station. Located on Ross Island, McMurdo Station is the headquarters of the National Science Foundation. Whether offering a detailed study of the unique survival training regimen that newcomers to McMurdo are obligated to endure or pondering the majestic beauty of a landscape where the discovery of three new species in a single day is something worth truly celebrating, Herzog boldly offers viewers the opportunity to visit one of the most inaccessible and awe-inspiring landscapes on the planet.

♦  Happy People: A Year In The Taiga  ⇐ [WH + Dmitry Wasyukov, 2010]

Visually stunning documentary about indigenous people living in the heart of the Siberian Taiga. Deep in the wilderness, far away from civilization, 300 people inhabit the small village of Bakhtia at the river Yenisei. There are only two ways to reach this outpost: by helicopter or boat. There’s no telephone, running water or medical aid. The locals, whose daily routines have barely changed over the last centuries, live according to their own values and cultural traditions. With insightful commentary written and narrated by Herzog, HAPPY PEOPLE: A YEAR IN THE TAIGA follows one of the Siberian trappers through all four seasons of the year to tell the story of a culture virtually untouched by modernity.

♦→  «Cave of Forgotten Dreams»  ⇐  [2010]

Werner Herzog gains exclusive access to film inside the Chauvet caves of southern France, capturing the oldest known pictorial creations of humankind in their astonishing natural setting. He puts 3-D technology to a profound use, taking us back in time over 30,000 years.